


there are no accidental meetings

by thebeastinme



Series: ultimate ot4 [1]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, F/F, F/M, Harley Keener Needs a Hug, Harley Keener is Tony Stark's Adopted Child, Harley Keener-centric, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, M/M, Multi, Panic Attacks, Suicidal Thoughts, mention of sex in passing but no actual sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-01-31
Packaged: 2021-03-17 11:28:04
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29099553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebeastinme/pseuds/thebeastinme
Summary: Set in a universe where everybody has soul marks on their inside of their right forearm. These soul marks are black solid dots until you meet your soul mates, then fade into color as your bond becomes stronger. Yellow dots mean true love, blue dots mean parental love.A character study of Harley Keener realizing he is more than he thinks.An eventual series hopefully.
Relationships: Harley Keener/Peter Parker/Ned Leeds/Michelle Jones, Michelle Jones/Ned Leeds/Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark
Series: ultimate ot4 [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2136822
Kudos: 26





	there are no accidental meetings

**Author's Note:**

> there is character death, but it's not a main character. 
> 
> pepper is sort of a side character, and i feel bad about it, so she will probably get her own oneshot because she is amazing and more deserving. 
> 
> also endgame and AOU didn't happen whOOP WHOOP

Harley is eight, and he wears long sleeves every day, because he lives in bum-fuck, Tennessee, and he’s sick of the judging looks when other people see the five dots trailing down the inside of his forearm. He wears a long sleeve shirt, covered by a hoodie, and slips bracelets on his left arm for good measure. He’s always watching, evaluating everyone else’s marks. The most he’s ever seen someone else have is two. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is ten, and he only realizes that Tony is one of his soulmates after he’s driven away. Harley had tried, he had really, truly tried his hardest to go with Tony – but he’d still driven away and left Harley in the dust, so he’d gone back to his garage and stared at the Iron Man suit until it had flown out in pieces. Harley is convinced he’d imagined the whole encounter until he strips for his shower and one of his soul marks has turned blue. It’s a subtle change, from the darkest black to a deep navy, but it’s changed, and Harley slides down the back of the bathroom door and tries not to flip his shit. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is twelve, and he realizes he was an accident child. If he wasn’t, one of his marks would’ve already been colored dark blue, for his mom. He googles it in the dead of night in his upgraded (thank you, Tony Stark, for not being a figment of my imagination, he thinks), garage and discovers he’s not the only one who was born with all black marks. Regardless, he starts trying to figure out how to get out of Rose Hill, since the only person who’s ever remotely wanted him was Tony Stark, and New York City is nowhere near Tennessee. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is fourteen, and his mom dies in a car accident on interstate twenty-four, driving back from her parents’ house. He is with her, sitting in the passenger seat, hunched over a book. They are both thrown from their vehicle, and land fifty feet away. Harley drags himself from the ditch he lands in, ignores the searing pain of what he’s sure is a broken arm, and holds his mother’s hand as she bleeds out, impaled on a tree branch. He is silent when the ambulance comes and takes both him and the body bag containing what’s left of his mother to the hospital. 

It takes two hours for the nurses to coax him into allowing them to treat his wounds. He won’t let go of his knees, perched curled up on the edge of a hospital bed. When he finally comes back to himself, he realizes he can’t move his right arm, so he uses his left arm to forcibly twist his elbow away from his body. The scream that follows is so high pitched, the nurses can’t figure out what he’d done until he tells them, before lapsing back into silence. He goes into surgery that night, and wakes up missing his right arm from just above the elbow down. 

Two days after surgery, Tony shows up in his room. Harley doesn’t hear him come in, his head turned towards the window, watching the sun set. 

“Harley,” Tony starts, voice soft, what Harley knows is pity bleeding in, “I came as soon as I heard.” Tony reaches out and rests his hand on Harley’s thigh. “Buddy? Can you look at me, please?”

Harley doesn’t move. He doesn’t speak. He hasn’t spoken since before surgery. 

“Okay,” Tony says, withdrawing his hand. “Okay, Harley. I’ll stay here until you’re ready.” 

Harley turns his head towards the man he considers to be his father. He meets Tony’s eyes, opens his mouth – but can’t bring himself to say anything. He shuts his mouth, and ducks his head, unwilling to see the expression on Tony’s face. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is fifteen, and he lives in Stark Tower. His room is larger than the whole upstairs of his old house, and it has bookshelves along three walls. The last wall is a whiteboard, with magnetic markers that Harley leaves everywhere on their floor, and Tony always finds and brings back to his room. He hasn’t spoken about the accident, or about his grief, or his loss, or his trauma. He spends his time in the lab, with Tony, building himself a new arm. Pepper finds them, heads hunched together over a holoscreen, or a prototype, and makes them leave the lab to eat and sleep and shower. When the three of them sit at the table together, eating dinner and listening to Pepper talk about her day, and Tony talk about potential patents, and Harley interject snide comments, Harley feels like a family. 

Harley is sixteen, and he has a prosthesis attached to his right shoulder that he built with Tony. It’s controlled through sensors implanted into his head, and he can feel almost as well as he can with his flesh hand. Late at night, after Pepper has dragged them from the lab, and locked it down, Harley sits on the roof and runs his new hand down his flesh arm. In the corner of his glasses, a small screen lights up with the chemical composition of his skin, and it changes as he moves over his soul marks. They haven’t changed since he met Tony. He doesn’t know if they ever will change. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is seventeen, and one of his soul marks change. What used to be four black dots with one dark blue running down his forearm turns into three black dots with two navy dots at the end. Harley isn’t stupid – he knows what the new blue dot means. That doesn’t mean he tells Tony. He’s scared, he doesn’t want to threaten the fragile routine Tony and him have established. So, he throws on a long sleeve, same as any other day, and layers a hoodie for good measure, then heads to the lab, bypassing the kitchen, since Pepper isn’t forcing him and Tony to eat before working. 

He heads into their shared lab, lifts a hand to wave to Tony, and sits at his desk, waving a hand to bring up Friday’s interface while plugging an earpiece connecting into his left ear. He starts speaking, a low, steady stream, parsing instructions to Friday in his ear and watching a simulation run across his interface. He’s in his zone – his hands manipulating parts for a future set of Iron Legacy armor, his brain half consumed directing Friday through running potential sensor options to fix his neural interface problem. He’s effective – so effective, he doesn’t notice or hear Tony telling Friday to shut it all down. His chair spins, Tony’s hands guiding him to face him. He pulls his ear piece out, twisting to place it on his desk. Tony doesn’t speak, just rests against the table behind him, arms crossed over his chest. Harley waits, meeting his gaze, matching his stance, pushing Tony to make the first move. 

Neither makes a move, and Tony’s gaze keeps flickering to Harley’s arms. Harley refuses to rise to the bait, instead waiting to see what conclusion Tony’s come to. 

“You gonna tell me why you were late this morning?” Tony finally speaks, arching an eyebrow and uncrossing his arms. He crosses the aisle, grabs another chair, and slides it in front of Harley. “Or why you’re wearing more layers than normal?”

Harley scoffs. “I was cold this morning. Couldn’t sleep last night.”

Tony sighs. “Kid, you really expect me to believe that? I know you got Cho to give you sleeping meds, so you can sleep whenever you want. I also know you were up hours before you needed to be this morning because Friday told me you were up.” 

“You can’t keep track of me through your all-knowing AI, that’s cheating.” It’s Tony’s turn to scoff at him. 

“I can do whatever I want, kid, it’s my building. Look, just,” Tony breaks their locked gaze, looks away, clearly at the end of his very short rope of dealing with emotions, “Just, let me know if you need anything, or even to talk, okay? I’m here for whatever you need.” He reaches out and sets a hand on top of Harley’s head, ruffling through his curls, then goes back to his desk. 

“Friday, bring it all back up, please?” Harley shoves his earpiece back into his ear, waves his interface back up, and spins himself back to his desk. He shoves all the feelings back down into his chest, ignoring the urge to yank his sleeves up and show Tony the changes. I just have to figure out how to say it, he thinks, I just have to get a handle on everything else and then maybe, I’ll tell him.

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is seventeen, and he meets Peter Parker by accident in the hallway of Midtown Tech. Pepper had put her foot down, especially after he hadn’t told her about his soul mark, and said it was time for him to go back to school. So, now he has a routine: Happy drives him to school, he takes the subway back to the Tower, he works in the lab until dinner, he eats a half portion of whatever Pepper throws together, and then goes back to the lab until Tony shuts it down for the night. It was nice, to have a routine, but it also meant he wasn’t present all the time – sometimes, it was easier to let go and float through the day rather than poke and prod and try to figure out what emotions were hiding underneath his layers. 

School wasn’t bad for Harley – he was smart, and funny, but he was also Tony Stark’s kid, and had a metal hand, so most people shied away from him. It was only halfway through the school year, after Harley had been at Midtown for two months, that he bumped into Parker physically. He’d noticed him already – it was impossible not to. Parker was Midtown’s resident dork, which, for a school of dorks, was saying something. He always knew the answer in class, and always Ned or Michelle by his side. Harley had noticed them first – the unlikely relationship amongst the three was talked about all over the school, and he heard whispers even in the library. It was interesting, and new, and Harley was, maybe just a little bit, jealous. If the gossip was true, then the three of them were soul mates – actual, true love soul mates. Harley believed the gossip wholeheartedly – the way the three of them looked at each other when they thought no one else was looking reminded Harley of Tony and Pepper, and the level of affection that Parker seemed to get from both Ned and Michelle was abundant. 

Harley is seventeen, and he bumps into Peter Parker in the hallway of their high school, is yelled at by Michelle, and glared at by Ned. He’s barely present enough to apologize to Parker, and head on his way, he doesn’t notice the way the three of them turn and watch him go, and he definitely doesn’t put the interaction down as notable in his journal. He only thinks back to it when he strips to take a shower and his remaining three soul marks – black, always black, since he’d always be alone – had turned yellow, the palest of yellow, barely visible against his pale skin. He stares at them in shock, and stands, dressed only in his boxers, in the bathroom, until Friday tells him Tony is looking for him and is threatening to come into the bathroom if Harley doesn’t come out. 

Harley is seventeen, and feels a glint of hope for the first time in his very young life.  
\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is eighteen, and he’s not sure if he wants to live or die, which is why he’s standing at the top of Stark Tower, looking out at the city. His week had gone downhill so quickly – Tony had meetings, and Pepper had meetings, and it was the anniversary of his becoming an orphan – and he wasn’t sure if it was worth it anymore. He was alone, and lonely, and it felt like it as always winter in his head – icy, sharp, stinging. 

“Harley? Kid?” Well, not alone – Tony must’ve been alerted by Friday that he was up here by himself. “Harley, will you come down from the edge? Please?” The begging in his voice is almost enough to make Harley turn and step down. 

Harley knows that Tony did one of the greatest things a person could do – he took in a kid he’d only met a few times, and gave him everything he’d ever asked for, and it feels wrong to jump when Tony’s right there, so he steps down. “Okay.” He says, leaning against the wall surrounding the edge, still drinking in the view. 

“Harley, please, just,” Harley knows Tony like the back of his hand – so he knows that Tony is slowly inching closer, probably running a hand through his hair. “Do you want to die, Harley?” 

Tony’s voice is so close – Tony is so close. Harley could reach out and touch him. He holds a hand out, making a stop motion with his metal hand. Tony stops, Harley feels like everything is moving so slowly, that time is just melted ice cream and they are dragging their feet. “No – yes – I don’t know, Tony.” 

Tony is three feet away from him. He shuffles a step closer, arms by his sides. Harley puts his arm down, nods, and Tony rushes forward, gathering him in a hug. 

“Okay. Okay, kiddo, we can work with that. We can make that better; I swear to you. I will help you make it better, bud.” Tony whispers into his hair, arms wrapped over his shoulders. Harley’s arms are wrapped around Tony’s waist, grasping at his shirt. “Harley, you have to let someone in. You have to let someone help you, kid.”

He shakes at Tony’s words. “My thoughts are too big for my brain, Tony, it’s easier to jus float away or sink to the bottom,” Harley’s voice catches in his throat, and Tony’s grasp tightens, “Oh, god, Tony, I just wanted a break, I just wanted it to stop for a minute.” He buries his face where Tony’s neck meets his shoulder, sinking into the touch. 

“Harley, buddy,” Tony doesn’t say anything for a long minute, “Will you tell a therapist that?” The question hangs in the silence, until Harley nods, a minute movement against Tony’s neck, and the older man sighs in relief. “C’mon, kid, let’s get you inside.”

They ride the elevator down from the roof, standing with their sides pressed together. Harley can’t stop shaking. He’s only wearing a t-shirt, he realizes, soul marks on display, metal arm on display. He can’t bring himself to care. “You want to warm up, Harley?” 

Tony’s standing outside the elevator, holding the door open, waiting for Harley to walk out. He isn’t sure how long the elevator’s been at their floor. Harley nods, once, then walks out of the elevator, and heads towards his room. “I’m gonna, I’m. I’m gonna take a shower, I think.” He tosses the words over his shoulder, tries to hide his stutter, and is surprised when Tony falls into step behind him. 

“I’ll wait in your room, okay?” They stand outside the door, Tony waiting for Harley to give his okay. Harley stares at the nameplate on his door, nods, pushes the door open. He grabs a pair of sweatpants, a hoodie, a pair of boxers, and socks from his dresser, then walks over to his bathroom. Tony stands at the door to his bedroom, watching him, leaning against the doorframe with his arms crossed over his chest. 

Harley realizes it’s because he’s afraid – Tony’s afraid of what Harley’s going to do if he’s by himself. He opens his mouth, then shuts it again, and walks into the bathroom. He leaves the door open a crack, unwilling to have a barrier between himself and Tony. 

He strips, tossing his clothes into the hamper, turns on the shower, and hops in, drawing the waffled navy curtain around the bathtub. He stands under the spray, letting the hot water soak into his skin and steam up the room. He hears Tony come in, sees his silhouette lean against the counter, as if Tony’s unwilling to let Harley out of arm’s reach. 

Harley washes his hair, runs body wash over himself, and stands under the hot water for another minute. He shuts off the water, and Tony throws a towel over the top of the shower curtain. He wraps it around his waist, tucking in the edge just below his hip bones. 

When he steps out of the shower, a billow of steam follows. It’s not enough to keep Tony from seeing his hip bones, from seeing the thin white lines that crisscross his stomach. Tony’s knuckles turn white from how hard he’s gripping the countertop. Harley can’t stand to see the emotion play out on his face, so he brushes past him, into his room, and pulls on his clothes. Tony watches as he rubs moisturizer into his face and hands, runs curl cream through his hair. There’s sadness, Harley thinks, in his eyes. 

When he’s done, when he’s brushed his teeth and pulled his socks on, and is sitting on the edge of the bed, Tony sits against the headboard, legs straight in front of him. 

“Have you tried before? That, that thing you tried tonight – have you tried to do that before?” Harley rests his head in his hands, elbows on his knees. With a sigh that feels like it comes from his bones, he stands up, walking around the edge of the bed and plopping down until he’s next to Tony, mirroring his position. 

“Yeah,” Tony breathes in sharply, so sharply it cuts into Harley’s heart the same way he’s cut into his hips. “I tried to take a bunch of my mom’s pills, but it wasn’t enough. I didn’t finish the bottle, and spent the night hacking them up into the toilet.” He’d known, just barely, that he needed help then, but he couldn’t verbalize it, so instead, he didn’t finish the bottle, and puked all night, then went to school the next day and claimed a sore throat. 

“Harley,” Tony starts.

“Please don’t, Tony. I know, okay? I know that I need help. There’s something wrong with me.” He’s back to shaking, his hands, his shoulders, his legs, his whole body is quivering, but he needs to say the words. “Tony, I don’t want to die, but I don’t know what to do or who I am.”

Tony pulls him in, tight against his side, Harley’s head on Tony’s chest where the arc reactor used to be. Tony’s arm are tight around Harley, grounding him. Tony shushes him, “I’ve got you, okay? You are Harley Keener, and you’re going to be okay. It’s okay to need help.”

Harley falls asleep like that, head resting on Tony’s chest. Pepper comes in a while later, looking for Tony, and finds him staring down at his son. She smiles, a sad, small thing that barely pulls the edges of her lips up, and pulls a blanket over them, tucking them in together. She kisses Tony’s forehead, traces the second blue dot on Harley’s arm. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is eighteen, and on the morning he swallows his Zoloft for the fourteenth time, he asks Tony if some friends can come over and stay the night. The whole time Harley is stammering through his question, his metal arm is tapping one-two-three down the yellow soul marks. Tony waits for him to finish the question before nodding. 

“Harley, buddy, bring your friends over. There are whole floors of this building that are never used, just commandeer one of those and tell Friday which one.” Harley lets out a relieved sigh, and turns to go to his desk. “Hey, bud?” 

Harley reaches his desk, sits heavily, starts twirling a screwdriver with his metal hand. “Yeah?”

“Are these friends,” Tony pauses, trying to figure out how to word it in a way that isn’t awkward as hell, “Alright, I’m just gonna ask. Are they your soul mates? My answer doesn’t change, I’m just curious.”

The screwdriver hits the floor with a clank, and Harley bends over the pick it up, his hair falling over his face and hiding his flushed cheeks. “I guess,” it’s Harley’s turn to pause, “I guess they are. Our marks match up. I don’t know yet, though. I just. I feel safe here, and I want some time with them here, at home, y’know?” 

Tony can’t hide the grin that comes over his cheeks when he hears Harley call the Tower home – it’s all he’s wanted, is for Harley to feel safe, and now, the kid feels safe enough to bring his (potential) soul mates over. “Okay. Proud of you, kid. Not just for the soul mate stuff.”

He turns back to his work, bringing up the schematics for Harley’s arm while texting Pepper about the development. 

“Tony?” He turns back to Harley, who’s staring at his desk, the same screwdriver in his hand. “Thanks.”

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Harley is eighteen years and six months old, and he’s standing in the kitchen having a panic attack while his three soul mates sit on the couch in a puppy pile. 

"Harley, if you don’t breathe, I will be forced to alert the Boss that you are in distress," Friday’s voice comes from the speaker in the wall next to him. "Do you want me to alert the others present on the floor?"

“No, Friday,” Harley manages to choke out, hands tugging at his hair, “I’m fine, don’t tell Tony, don’t tell them. I just need a minute.” 

"Okay, Harley. If you are still in distress in fifteen minutes my protocols state I have to let the Boss know." 

“Oh, god,” He whispers to himself, bending over the sink, willing himself to not throw up, “You’re going to be okay. You can do this. It’s just Peter and Michelle and Ned. They’re not scary.” He rests his hands on either side of the sink, does a few of the deep breathing exercises his therapist taught him, and steels himself to walk back into the living room. 

He turns around and is startled by Peter leaning in the doorway hands tucked into his pockets, blocking the way. “Oh, god, how much of that did you hear?” 

Peter smiles, pulls his hands out of pockets. “Um, a good amount. I, uh, got worried, when you didn’t come back, since you said you were just grabbing a drink, so MJ told me to come check on you, and, yeah, I’m, um, glad I did.” He rests one hand on the back of his neck, looks into Harley’s eyes sheepishly. 

Harley steps towards him, the urge to wrap the shorter boy in a hug overpowering the urge to keep his distance. “Peter,” Harley starts, only to be cut off. 

“Look, um, I just. I really want to. Um.” Harley raises one eyebrow as Peter stutters through his sentence. “Can I, just, like, hug you? Please?” 

Harley’s speechless, his mouth falling open at Peter’s question. Peter is definitely the most affectionate person Harley’s ever met – the guy is always hugging, or holding hands with, or just generally leaning against one of his soul mates. Which, Harley realizes, he is one of Peter’s soul mates. 

“Yeah, Peter,” Harley hears a whoosh as Peter exhales, “That would be really nice, actually.”

Peter steps forward, the two meeting in the middle of the kitchen. He reaches out, taking Harley’s metal hand in one of his, then his flesh hand in the other. He holds his hands for a second, then drops them and presses his body straight against Harley’s, arms wrapping tight around his waist. Harley’s arms come up to wrap around Peter’s shoulders, his flesh hand settling on the base of his neck the way he’s seen Michelle do a thousand times. When Harley winds his fingers into the curls at the base of Peter’s neck and pulls, gently, he feels the shorter boy relax sink even more into the embrace.  
“That feels really good,” Peter mumbles against Harley’s shirt, face pressed into his chest, “Will you do it some more?” 

Harley holds back a laugh at how relaxed Peter is, just with the application of physical affection. “Do you want to go back out to the living room, maybe, and we can all talk some more? I’m super nervous and jittery about it but honestly the longer we stand here and hug the better I feel.” Harley speaks in Peter’s hair, unwilling to let him see the honesty seep into his face. 

He feels Peter smile against his chest. “Yeah, we can go back out there. I think Ned and MJ wanted to talk anyway because this is all really new and it took us a while to figure out three so the sooner we figure out four the better it’ll all be right?” Peter speaks quickly while withdrawing from the embrace, feeling cold already. 

They leave the kitchen together, Peter having picked up Harley’s flesh hand, unwilling to not be touching at all for even a short time. They head into the living room, and find Ned and MJ squished in one corner of the L-shaped couch, Ned’s head on MJ’s thigh, her hand in his hair. He sits up when he sees Peter and Harley come in, nudges MJ, who’s scrolling through her phone. 

Peter moves to take his normal seat in between them, but pauses before sitting down, realizing there’s nowhere for Harley to sit next to him, so he stops and sits on the other side of MJ, pulling Harley down next to him. Ned scoots closer to MJ, and the four of them stare at each other. 

“Okay, so, um, I guess we should talk about how this is going to work, y’know, since there are four of us?” Harley is at a loss of words, he is at a loss for emotions, all he knows is that Peter still has a hold of his hand and is keeping him grounded in the moment. He can feel Michelle and Ned looking at them, her eyes burning through him, windows to his soul. He can feel Ned staring at their interlocked hands. He can feel the anxiety and panic jittering up in his chest. He feels like this was a bad idea. 

“Hey, Harley?” MJ pulls his attention away from glancing around the room and to her. “Can you take a deep breathe for me?” He stares at her in shock, unable to get a breath in. “Jeez, Harley, you have to breathe. You haven’t done anything wrong, just breathe.” 

He starts hyperventilating, his eyes widening as he stares at Michelle, unable to do anything but gasp quicker. Peter squeezes his hand, pulls it up to rest on his chest, takes exaggerated breaths and tries to guide Harley. “Harley, just follow my breathing, okay? In, and then out. Here, would this help?” He reaches out, grabs Ned’s hand, places it on Harley’s metal hand. Then, Peter takes Michelle’s hand, replaces it with his in Harley’s flesh hand, and then Peter wraps his arms around Harley, squeezing lightly. 

Harley doesn’t know what’s happening. There’s lightning flying through him where Peter is pressing them together, and Michelle has let go of his hand to trail her fingers up and down his forearm, tapping exactly where their soul marks are, and Ned is turning his metal hand over in his hands, and it’s all so much, that Harley starts crying, tears slipping down his face.

“I,” He starts, and the three look up at him, “Oh, god, I feel like lightning, is it like this all the time?” He rests his head down on Peter’s, who is laughing into his chest, and he hears Michelle sigh and then chuckle, and then he hears Ned chortling at him, and he is filled with so much affection for these three people that nothing else matters. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Peter wouldn’t shup up about you after you bumped into each other,” It’s hours later, the four of them have been sitting on the couch watching movies and cuddling, and Harley had gotten up to take a piss. He’s not sure how long he’s been standing in front of the mirror when Michelle comes in. 

“What do you mean?” He asks, turning away from his reflection, looking her straight in the eye. He can almost tamp down the urge to take her in his arms and push his face into her hair – they’ve figured out he’s like Peter and is so tactile, so clingy, and so needy, but Michelle isn’t. She loves Peter, and allows him to cling to her, but they just started talking and haven’t figured out the whole logistics of being a foursome yet, and Harley is pretty sure he can’t just reach out and touch the bit of skin on her hip where her jeans have ridden down and her top has ridden up. 

“Harley?” She’s staring at him again. He isn’t sure how long he’s been lost in his head. “Are you okay?” God, he thinks, I feel drunk. He stares at her, shoves his hands in his pockets so he won’t reach out and touch her. 

“Yeah, no, I’m totally fine.” She scoffs at him, stepping closer. He makes grabby hands in the pocket of his sweatshirt, the movement drawing her attention away from his face for a second. 

“Harley, it’s okay. You’re allowed to need touch. You’re allowed to hug me, okay? If you’re anything like Peter, and I’m willing to bet you are, based off the look on your face and the way you’re all tense, you need the touch, and we just overwhelmed your system, and you’ve been by yourself with no touch for almost half an hour. Harley,” She stops, narrowing her eyes at him and stepping closer, again, and shit, Harley can’t control himself, and he steps back, bumping into the counter. “Harley, it is okay. Can I give you a hug? Please?” She waits, arms loose by her sides, trying to meet his eyes, but he won’t look at her. He feels like he’s run a marathon, his chest is heaving, his head is spinning, but not in a good way, so he nods, jerking his chin up and down. 

She comes closer, takes his wrists and pulls his hands out of his pockets, then winds her arms around his waist. He lets his arms hang loose, unsure of where to put his hands, and loses the battle when he drops his head into her hair and smells her strawberry conditioner. His arms come up, of their own accord, one tight around her shoulders, the other resting in her hair, and he breathes deeply. She sighs against his chest, and he sinks into the embrace, feels his head clear. 

“How did you know?” He asks into her hair, gently pushing her head back onto his chest when she tries to meet his eyes. 

“How could I not? You were gone for a while, and so I asked Friday if you were okay, and she said you hadn’t moved. A similar thing happened when Peter, Ned, and I got together. Peter’s system kind of freaking out about having constant affection and touch, so after a weekend of being together all the time, we all had to go back to our separate houses, and he kind of flipped his shit a little bit. May had to call us to come calm him down, he was a mess. He barely recognized us; it was like he was in withdrawal. So now, we try and just spend the last few hours before separating slowly distancing ourselves from each other, so that leaving isn’t as hard. It’s gotten a lot better since May doesn’t care if we spend the night, so even when we separate after school we can all come back together.” 

“Oh.” Harley stays quiet for a moment, then pulls back from the hug. “Is that going to happen to me when you guys leave? You know, since you can all sleep together at Peter’s?” 

There’s a flash of emotion through Michelle’s eyes, and she steps out of the embrace, but catches his hands and holds them. “We’re going to make sure it doesn’t, okay? It’s not okay to drop like that, ever.” They stare at each other until Harley nods, and Michelle huffs out a breath. “Come back to the couch, okay? I bet Petey and Ned are trying to find you in their sleep.” 

She leads him out of the bathroom, down the hallway. They make their way back to the couch, and stare down at Peter and Ned, who are sprawled out covering the whole surface. 

“Um. Michelle?” She turns to him, still holding his hand, he notices. “There are beds here, if we want to wake them up. We could just go to bed, if that was something y’all wanted.” 

A ghost of a smile crosses her lips, and she nods. 

“Alright, I’ll wake them up, one second,” Michelle grumbles, dropping Harley’s hand. She kneels beside Ned’s head, bushes his hair back from his forehead, nudges him awake gently. “C’mon, Ned, let’s go find a real bed, okay?” 

He nods, pushing his face into her hand where it rests on his cheek. Then he swings his legs over the edge and sits up, looking up and seeing Harley. “Hey, man. You were gone for a little bit. You good?” 

Harley bites his lip, twists his hands together in the pocket of his sweatshirt. “Yeah, yeah, I’m fine. Um, are you going to wake up Peter?” 

Ned continues looking at him, taking a step closer and resting a hand on his shoulder. Harley stops swaying, a motion he didn’t realize he was making. “MJ’ll wake him up in a second, he sleeps like the dead. Do you need a second, just the three of us?” Harley looks up from his hands, meets Ned’s eyes. It’s intense, seeing the worry-comfort-fear on the surface – Harley is used to hiding all his emotions deep down. 

“Is that allowed?” He wonders aloud, “Is it going to hurt Peter’s feelings?” Ned smiles, a toothy grin taking over his face, and Harley wants to keep that there all the time. It’s a crime that this boy isn’t happy and smiling all the time.

“Peter has had us all day, and will always have us. You seem like you need a minute of just us, paying attention to you, okay? There are no rules here, it’s just us, and being open with each other. Shit, if MJ wanted to be by herself for the night, she can go do that, if I wanted to have just time with Peter, I can do that. As long as we all communicate, no one gets hurt.” 

Harley nods, feeling overwhelmed again – but this time, it’s because he’s exhausted, and Ned’s still got his hand on his shoulder, rubbing circles into his collarbone with his thumb, and Michelle’s creeped up behind him, wrapped her arms around his waist and slipped her hands into his pocket with his. 

“Come sit with us for a bit, okay? Let’s just, like, get to know each other, as friends, and we can snuggle while doing it.” Michelle starts to pull Harley away from the couch, pulls her hands out of his pocket. She leads him down the hallway towards the bedroom, one hand grasped tight on his metal hand. Ned is still touching him, just lightly pressing his hand against the small of Harley’s back. It's all Harley can focus on, and then he takes his hand away and moves toward the balcony, and it's cold, and windy, and Harley's gone, floating off the ground. 

\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

“Harley, honey?” Ned’s face swims into Harley’s view. “You with us?” 

Harley blinks twice, then again. He looks down, realizes he’s sitting on the edge of the bed, Ned kneeling in front of him, Michelle next to him. She’s trailing her hand up and down his back. It feels nice. 

Ned has pushed up Harley’s sleeves, and rested his fingers across their soul marks. 

“Hey, man, can you say something so I know you’re in there? Do I need to get Tony?” Michelle says, her voice wrapping around Harley the way a blanket would. 

“I, I’m here. What happened?” Harley asks, trying to make sense of the lost time. “Did something happen?”

Ned and MJ exchange glances. “We came into the bedroom from the living room. I opened the door, asked if it was okay if I opened the doors to the balcony for some fresh air. When I opened the doors, you froze, you were just staring out at the balcony, not moving. I tried to hug you, but you tensed up, so we just managed to get you to come sit down and we’ve been talking to you for the last few minutes,” MJ paused, drew in a deep breath, “Friday said you were dissociating, that this happened earlier tonight in the kitchen, and that you’re prone to it. Harley, why didn’t you say something?” 

He can hear the worry in her voice. “I didn’t think it was going to be a problem, normally I just kind of leave whenever I’m having a really hard day or my brain is too loud or there’s too much happening.” He looks down at his lap, starts tapping his fingers on his thighs. Ned’s hands cover his, twining their fingers together. 

“Harley, you’ve had a big day, man. You gained three soulmates, and it’s stressful, because there are a lot of conversations the four of us need to have, but we’re not going to do it tonight, especially not when there’s other stuff for us to work through, okay?” Ned waits for Harley to nod before continuing. “I’m going to go get Peter, and bring him in here, and the four of us can fall asleep, okay? Have you ever slept with someone like this before? Just, cuddled all night?” 

Harley shakes his head, “I’m a virgin. I’ve never done anything,” He stops when he sees the blush come over Ned’s cheeks. 

“Oh, god, I didn’t mean sex, I meant sleep, but, um, yeah, that’s cool too, I, um,” Ned’s blush spreads up his face. “I’m going to go get Peter now, I feel like he should be a part of this conversation.”  
Ned stands up, pushing off Harley’s thighs, and walks away. Harley watches him, slightly in shock and very confused. He turns to Michelle, pulling a knee up on the bed. 

“Did I say something wrong?” He asks his lap more than her, not expecting her to giggle and slot her hands under his armpits. She tugs, scooting back onto the pillows and arranging Harley so he’s laying between her legs, head pillowed on her thigh. 

One of her hands rests in his hair, the other is held tight in Harley’s grasp. “No, honey, you didn’t say anything wrong. Ned didn’t realize what he was asking – he’s innocent and naïve. We haven’t really talked all that much about the whole sex thing – this is still new and honestly, Peter is so clingy already that I’m almost afraid to know how much clinger he’s going to be after we all get naked together. That much skin touching is bound to just cause an overload for someone.” While she talks, she runs her fingers through his curls. 

“Did I hear my name?” Peter steps into the room, dragging Ned by the hand. “I swear you said Peter and clingy in the same sentence, Emmy.” He drops Ned’s hand, climbing on the bed so he’s in front of Harley. Peter rests his head on the same thigh, reaching an arm out to rest on Harley’s waist. “I woke up and you weren’t there anymore, Harls,” He whispers, rubbing his nose against Harley’s.

“I needed a minute,” Harley says back, the same lightening coursing through him as Ned settles behind him, arm resting over Peter’s on his waist. 

“You mean you needed a panic attack, Harley,” MJ quips from above, leaning over her three boys. “I think we need to talk about the whole thing where physical affection is addicting and also necessary for some more than others.” Peter groans at her words, pushing his face into her thigh. 

“I already got this speech, I’ll try and equalize my affection amongst all of you, I won’t do it in public as much,” He starts listing off, before realizing MJ isn’t looking at him. “Wait, Harley, you had a panic attack? Again?” 

Ned’s head pops up over Harley’s shoulder, grabbing Peter’s attention. “What the heck do you mean again? I thought it was just one in the bathroom?” 

MJ sighs, then pokes the side of Harley’s head. “You wanna tell us all what’s going on, hun?”

He shakes his head into the side of her leg, hen sighs, flipping onto his back. Ned and Peter adjust so they’re each holding one of his hands, and MJ gently massages his shoulders. “I had a minor panic attack in the kitchen, and Peter found me, and then we all talked, and hugged, and then I went to the bathroom, and had a panic attack, and then Michelle found me, and then we hugged, and I felt much better, and we went to get Ned, and then we came in here to talk, and I dissociated a little bit because the breeze felt like it did when I was on top of the Tower a few weeks ago and Tony found me, and then Ned asked if I’d had sex, and then went to get Peter, and now we’re all here.” 

Peter lifted his head from where it’d been resting half on MJ’s thigh and half on Harley’s chest. “I’m sorry, did you say Mr. Stark found you on top of the Tower?” 

“Uh, yeah,” Harley says, staring straight up at the ceiling. He feels Michelle’s hands stop moving on his shoulders. 

“Were you planning on jumping, Harley?” She asks softly, setting a hand on his forehead. 

A few very long minutes pass. “I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not sure, if Tony hadn’t have come up when he did, maybe.” Harley flicks his eyes to MJ’s face, startled to find tears rolling down her cheeks. He looks over to Peter, then to Ned, realizing they’re both holding onto his hands tighter than they were before. “I’m getting help now. Tony has me seeing a therapist twice a week, and I take medication,” Harley stops to pull in a breath. “I don’t want to die anymore, not like I did.” He lets out a deep exhale. 

The four sit in silence, the only sounds breaking the quiet being Michelle sliding down the bed to slip behind Ned, then shoving him closer to Harley. They lay there, Michelle’s arm pressing over Ned to hold Peter’s hand on Harley’s hip, Ned spooning Harley against him, and Peter pushed chest to chest with Harley. 

It’s morning, the sun shining in through the window when Harley wakes up, confused and very warm. He moves to stretch and realizes he’s still wearing his arm, and his contacts, and then he realizes he’s become wrapped up in an embrace. Sometime in the middle of the night, MJ and Ned had switched places, and Harley had turned over. He could feel Peter pushed against his back, could feel MJ’s breath huffing against his neck from her position chest to chest with him. His hand was holding Ned’s on MJ’s hip, his other arm stretched under his head. He felt, for the first time in a while, okay. He felt safe, and warm, and knew that this was all he wanted, and he had them, and they had him.

**Author's Note:**

> oh god this has been swirling in my head for literal days and i finally figured out how to write it woOP
> 
> please let me know if this makes sense!!!! i love reading peter/ned/mj and harley/peter and realized i could combine them to make the ultimate foursome 
> 
> also i love the idea of the four of them being powerful as heck


End file.
